Buying, Bringing or Going Home?

For whatever reason, I woke up this morning with a question on my mind: "Will I be buying, bringing or going home?"

This question was asked every morning at Longfellow Elementary School. It was the first order of business right after the Pledge of Allegiance. The subject at hand concerned Lunch Period.

A tally of how many students who were buying lunches was needed so the cafeteria staff knew how many grilled cheese sandwiches they had to make that day.

The number of children who had brought their own lunches were needed so they knew how many cartons of milk were needed in the "milk only" line. In those heady days a half-pint of white, whole milk cost two cents. It was pretty heavily subsidized, I later found out.

I guess they needed to know who was going home for lunch to ensure a proper head count in the cafeteria. I guess it would also be nice to know which students were leaving the building for a half-hour that day.

Boy, can you believe there was a time where grade-schoolers were allowed to leave school and walk home by themselves for lunch? Wow!

I lived a scant block away from school and many were the times I'd trek home for soup and sandwich at noon. Mom would have JEOPARDY playing on the TV set.

(The real Jeopardy; the one hosted by Art Fleming!)

I don't know what prompted me to think of those long gone school lunch breaks this morning, but there you go.

So how about you?

Are you buying, bringing or going home for lunch today?

I brought mine.